Julian Assange: Why I Founded WikiLeaks Julian Assange: Why I Founded WikiLeaks By Julian Assange On 12/24/14 at 9:35 AM WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange waves from a window with Ecuador's Foreign Affairs Minister Ricardo Patino at Ecuador's embassy in central London June 16, 2013. Chris Helgren/Reuters Julian Assange explains the radical thinking that led him to create WikiLeaks in When Google Met WikiLeaks , published by OR Books . Assange’s account of his encounter with the head of Google, Eric Schmidt, can be found here . I looked at something that I had seen going on with the world, which is that I thought there were too many unjust acts. And I wanted there to be more just acts, and fewer unjust acts. Try Newsweek for only $1.25 per week And one can ask, “What are your philosophical axioms for this?” And I say, “I do not need to consider them. This is simply my temperament. And it is an axiom because it is that way.” That avoids getting into further unhelpful philosophical discussion about why I want to do something. It is enough that I do.

In considering how unjust acts are caused, and what tends to promote them, and what promotes just acts, I saw that human beings are basically invariant. That is, their inclinations and biological temperament haven’t changed much over thousands of years. Therefore the only playing field left is: what do they have and what do they know? What they have—that is, what resources they have at their disposal, how much energy they can harness, what food supplies they have and so on—is something that is fairly hard to influence. But what they know can be affected in a nonlinear way because when one person conveys information to another they can convey it on to another, and another, in a way that is nonlinear[i]. So you can affect a lot of people with a small amount of information. Therefore, you can change the behavior of many people with a small amount of information. The question then arises as to what kinds of information will produce behavior which is just and disincentivize behavior which is unjust? All around the world there are people observing different parts of what is happening to them locally. And there are other people that are receiving information that they haven’t observed firsthand.

In the middle there are people who are involved in moving information from the observers to the people who will act on information. These are three separate problems that are all tied together. I felt that there was a difficulty in taking observations and, in an efficient way, putting them into a distribution system which could then get this information to people who would act upon it. You can argue that companies like Google, for example, are involved in this “middle” business of moving information from people who have it to people who want it. The problem I saw was that this first step was crippled, and often the last step was as well, when it came to information that governments were inclined to censor. “People don’t want to be coerced, they don’t want to be killed.” We can look at this whole process as justice produced by the Fourth Estate[ii]. This description, which is partly derived from my experiences in quantum mechanics, looks at the flow of particular types of information which will effect some change in the end. The bottleneck appeared to me to be primarily in the acquisition of information that would go on to produce changes that were just.

In a Fourth Estate context, the people who acquire information are sources; the people who work on information and distribute it are journalists and publishers; and the people who may act on it includes everyone. That’s a high-level construct. But it then comes down to how you practically engineer a system that solves that problem, and not just a technical system but a total system. WikiLeaks was, and is, an attempt—although still very young—at a total system. On the technical front, our first prototype was engineered for a very adverse situation where publishing would be extremely difficult and our only effective defense would be anonymity, where sourcing would be difficult (as it still currently is for the national security sector), and where internally we had a very small and completely trusted team. I would say that probably the most significant form of censorship, historically, has been economic censorship, where it is simply not profitable to publish something because there is no market for it. I describe censorship as a pyramid. On the top of the pyramid there are the murders of journalists and publishers. On the next level there are legal attacks on journalists and publishers. A legal attack is simply a delayed use of coercive force, which doesn’t necessarily result in murder but may result in incarceration or asset seizure.

Remember, the volume of the pyramid increases significantly as you go down from the peak, and in this example that means that the number of acts of censorship also increases as one goes down. "When Google Met Wikileaks" by Julian Assange OR Books “We would need a publishing system where the only defense was anonymity.” There are very few people who are murdered, there are a few public legal attacks on individuals and corporations and then at the next level down there is a tremendous amount of self-censorship. This self-censorship occurs in part because people don’t want to move up into the upper parts of the pyramid—they don’t want to come under legal attack and coercive force, they don’t want to be killed. That discourages people from behaving in a certain way. Then there are other forms of self-censorship motivated by concerns over missing out on business deals, missing out on promotions. Those are even more significant because they are lower down the pyramid. At the very bottom—which is the largest volume—is all those people who cannot read, do not have access to print, do not have access to fast communications, or where there is no profitable industry in providing such[iii].

We decided to deal with the top two sections of this censorship pyramid: threats of violence, and the delayed threats of violence that are represented by the legal system. In some ways that is the hardest case; in some ways it is the easiest case. It is the easiest case because it is clear-cut when things are being censored or not. It is also the easiest case because the volume of censorship is relatively small, even if the per-event significance can be very high. Initially, WikiLeaks didn’t have that many friends. Although of course I had some previous political connections of my own from other activities, we didn’t have significant political allies and we didn’t have a worldwide audience that was looking to see how we were doing. So we took the position that we would need to have a publishing system where the only defense was anonymity. It had no financial defense; it had no legal defense; and it had no political defense. Its defenses were purely technical. That meant a system that was distributed at its front[iv] with many domain names, and a fast ability to change those domain names[v], a caching system[vi], and, at the back, tunneling through the Tor network to hidden servers[vii].

Extracted from When Google Met WikiLeaks by Julian Assange published by OR Books . Newsweek readers can obtain a 20 percent discount on the cover price when ordering from the OR Books website and including the offer code word NEWSWEEK. Assange’s account of a long conversation with the head of Google , Eric Schmidt, can be found here . ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [i] What is meant by “nonlinear” here is that the rate at which information spreads is not a constant, but instead increases as it spreads throughout a population. For example, if on one day a person spreads an idea to two people, and on the next day the three of them each spread it to two new people, and so on, then after the first day three people know, after the second day nine people know, after the first week 2,187 people know, and after twenty-one days every person on earth knows (given the present human population of 7.1 billion). In literal terms, “nonlinear” means “cannot be graphed as a straight line.” [ii] The “Fourth Estate” is an informal term referring to any group outside governmental or political organizations that have an influence on politics. It is usually used to denote the press.

[iii] For a visual representation of the censorship pyramid, see Marienna Pope-Weidemann, “Cypherpunks: Freedom and the Future of the Internet” (review), Counterfire, 13 September 2013, archive.today/Oyczc For further discussion of this idea, see Julian Assange with Jacob Appelbaum, Andy Müller-Maguhn, and Jérémie Zimmermann, Cypherpunks: Freedom and the Future of the Internet (OR Books, 2012), pp. 123–124. [iv] “Distributed at its front” is a technical description. The “front” of a website is the part that is visible when you visit it with your browser. On most news websites, the front and the back of the website are at the same physical location. This means that it is easier to censor, because there is just one point of weakness. WikiLeaks was built to deal with censorship, so it used a different model, where the back ends of the site are hidden and secret, and where the front end of the website is copied across lots of different computers.

This means that even if one of the computers that hosts the “front” of the website is attacked, there will be other copies, and the site will still be available to the public. Furthermore, the “back” of the website remains secret, and new “front” nodes can be created at will. [v] A “domain name” is a human-readable name for an internet site, like “wikileaks.org” or “whitehouse.gov” All devices connected to the internet are assigned numerical addresses, known as IP addresses. All internet sites on the web are hosted on computers, and can be accessed with an IP address. For example, “195.35.109.44” is an IP address for the WikiLeaks website (just one of many front nodes). IP addresses are difficult to remember. To solve this problem, the “domain name system” (DNS) was invented: the system for linking “domain names” to IP addresses. Unlike IP addresses, which are automatically assigned whenever you connect a device to the network, you can own a domain name of your choice by registering it with a “domain name registrar” for a small fee.

All domain names are entered into a global directory—like a telephone directory—that links each domain name to the real IP address of an actual website. When “wikileaks.org” is typed into a browser, the browser first does a “lookup”—it contacts a DNS server, which contains a copy of the global directory, and looks up the domain name “wikileaks.org” to find the corresponding IP. It then loads the website from that IP. When a domain name is successfully translated into an IP address, it is said to have “resolved.” A “DNS attack” is an attempt to cut off an internet site by interfering with the directory that links the domain name to the IP address, so that it will no longer resolve. But just as there are many different telephone directories, there are many different DNS servers. By being able to switch DNS servers quickly, it is possible to defend against the effects of a DNS attack, and ensure that the website is accessible. [vi] “A caching system,” in the abstract, is a fast system that holds no information to begin with but is connected to a slow system that does. When the cache is asked for information, it initially relays the request to the slow system, forwards the reply, and keeps a copy.

When the cache is asked again, it quickly sends the copy it has previously made. Related Stories Assange Raising 100,000 Pounds for Lifesize Statue of Himself WikiLeaks uses many location-shielding and encryption technologies that can slow down the path to the “back end,” where the content is generated. In this context, a caching system is designed to help speed up the overall system, to make it more usable, by speeding up any repeated requests, which the majority of requests are. [vii] A “hidden server,” in this context, is a server that is not accessible using the conventional internet. WikiLeaks was using custom software to hide some of its websites in a way that was inaccessible to most of the internet. The “back end” of WikiLeaks—that is, the software that produces the WikiLeaks website—was hidden. From the hidden “back end” the content was pushed to the front nodes by “tunneling through the Tor network,” that is, using the location-hiding and encrypted Tor network to push content to the servers where people could read it.

The concept is similar to that of the “Tor hidden service.” See the Tor Project website: archive.today/tmQ5y Profile: Wikileaks founder Julian Assange - BBC News BBC News Profile: Wikileaks founder Julian Assange 4 January 2017 Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Julian Assange has sought asylum at the Ecuadorean embassy in London since 2012 To his supporters, Julian Assange is a valiant campaigner for truth. To his critics, he is a publicity-seeker who has endangered lives by putting a mass of sensitive information into the public domain. Mr Assange is described by those who have worked with him as intense, driven and highly intelligent - with an exceptional ability to crack computer codes. He set up Wikileaks, which publishes confidential documents and images, in 2006 - making headlines around the world in April 2010 when it released footage showing US soldiers shooting dead 18 civilians from a helicopter in Iraq. But, later that year, he was detained in the UK after Sweden issued an international arrest warrant over allegations of sexual assault.

Swedish authorities said they wanted to question him over claims that he raped one woman and sexually molested and coerced another in August of that year, while on a visit to Stockholm to give a lecture. He says both encounters were entirely consensual. Political asylum He spent the following months fighting extradition while under house arrest in a small rural town in England. Westminster Magistrates' Court approved the extradition in February 2011 and this was later upheld by the High Court. On 14 June 2012, the UK Supreme Court dismissed his application to re-open the appeal. A few days later, Mr Assange sought refuge in the Ecuadorean embassy in London, where he remains after being granted political asylum by the South American country on 16 August 2012. He fears being extradited from Sweden to the US and put on trial for releasing secret US documents. Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Mr Assange used a speech in London to urge the US to end its "witchhunt" against Wikileaks The UK government has said it will not allow him safe passage out of the country to fly to Ecuador as it is legally obliged to extradite him to Sweden.

The Swedish foreign ministry insisted the sole reason they want Mr Assange extradited is so the allegations against him can be properly investigated. Sweden's prosecutors dropped their investigation into the sexual assault allegations on 13 August 2015 after running out of time to question and bring charges against Mr Assange, but he was later questioned relating to the more serious accusation of rape. In October 2016, Mr Assange requested to attend the funeral of Gavin MacFadyen, a US journalist and Wikileaks director who died in London on 22 October, aged 76. His request was denied by Swedish prosecutors. He said he was "heartbroken" by the decision. Assange, Wikileaks and the US election On 18 October 2016, Wikileaks reported that Ecuador had shut down Mr Assange's internet access at the embassy in London. Image copyright Twitter Ecuador later acknowledged that it had made the "temporary" move after the Wikileaks founder released material that "could have an impact" on the US presidential election. But Ecuadorian officials denied accusations by the pro-transparency group that the decision was the result of pressure from Washington.

The material published by the whistle-blowing site included transcripts of private speeches made by Hillary Clinton in 2013 and 2014. It also posted thousands of hacked emails, including exchanges with between Mrs Clinton and her staff. The White House has claimed that the cyber-breach was orchestrated by Russian hackers with the aim of undermining the US democratic process. That has been disputed by Mr Assange, who in an interview with Fox News on 3 January 2017 repeated his claim that Russia was not behind the leak. Reluctant spotlight Image copyright Reuters Image caption After pleading guilty to "hacking", Mr Assange escaped prison on the condition he did not reoffend Mr Assange has been generally reluctant to talk about his background, but media interest since the emergence of Wikileaks has thrown up some insight into his influences. He was born in Townsville, in the Australian state of Queensland, in 1971 and led a nomadic childhood while his parents ran a touring theatre. He became a father at 18, and custody battles soon followed. The development of the internet gave him a chance to use his early promise at maths, though this, too, led to difficulties.

In 1995 he was accused with a friend of dozens of hacking activities. Though the group of hackers was skilled enough to track detectives tracking them, Mr Assange was eventually caught and pleaded guilty. He was fined several thousand Australian dollars - only escaping a prison term on the condition that he did not reoffend. Image copyright AP Image caption Mr Assange was said to be "interested in the concept of ethics" by academic Suelette Dreyfus He then spent three years working with an academic, Suelette Dreyfus, who was researching the emerging, subversive side of the internet, writing a book with her, Underground, that became a bestseller in the computing fraternity. Ms Dreyfus described Mr Assange as a "very skilled researcher" who was "quite interested in the concept of ethics, concepts of justice, what governments should and shouldn't do". This was followed by a course in physics and maths at Melbourne University, where he became a prominent member of a mathematics society, inventing an elaborate puzzle that contemporaries said he excelled at.

Keeping sources safe He began Wikileaks in 2006 with a group of like-minded people from across the web, creating a web-based "dead-letterbox" for would-be leakers. Profile: Julian Assange Listen to BBC Radio 4's Profile of Julian Assange "[To] keep our sources safe, we have had to spread assets, encrypt everything, and move telecommunications and people around the world to activate protective laws in different national jurisdictions," Mr Assange told the BBC in 2011. "We've become good at it, and never lost a case, or a source, but we can't expect everyone to go through the extraordinary efforts that we do." Image caption Mr Assange told the BBC that in order to protect sources he would "encrypt everything" He adopted a nomadic lifestyle, running Wikileaks from temporary, shifting locations. He could go long stretches without eating, and focus on work with very little sleep, according to Raffi Khatchadourian, a reporter for the New Yorker magazine who spent several weeks travelling with him. "He creates this atmosphere around him where the people who are close to him want to care for him to help keep him going.

I would say that probably has something to do with his charisma." Release of classified documents Mr Assange came to prominence with the release of the footage of the US helicopter shooting civilians in Iraq. He promoted and defended the video, as well as the massive releases of classified US military documents on the Afghan and Iraq wars, in July and October 2010. The Wikileaks website went on to release new tranches of documents, including five million confidential emails from US-based intelligence company Stratfor. But it also found itself fighting for survival in 2010 when a number of US financial institutions began to block donations. Bitter legal battle Coverage of Mr Assange has been dominated by Sweden's efforts to question him over the sexual allegations. He has said that such efforts are politically motivated and are part of a smear campaign against him and his whistle-blowing website. He made a submission to the UK's Leveson Inquiry into press standards, saying he had faced "widespread inaccurate and negative media coverage". Mr Assange has been fighting a bitter legal battle since his arrest in London in December 2010. He spent eight nights in prison before being released and put under house arrest without charge, as the guest of wealthy supporters.

He won the right to petition the UK Supreme Court directly in his fight against extradition, but the court's judges dismissed his challenge. Mr Assange turned to Ecuador's President Rafael Correa for help, the two men having expressed similar views on freedom in the past. During an interview for Mr Assange's TV show on Russia Today, Mr Correa repeatedly praised Wikileaks and its work. His stay at the Ecuadorean embassy has been punctuated by occasional press statements and interviews. Health concerns Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Mr Assange dismissed reports in 2014 that he would be leaving the embassy to seek medical treatment Concerns over his health have also surfaced. As early as October 2012, Ecuador's embassy said it has sought assurances that Mr Assange would not be arrested if he was taken to hospital, saying it is "very concerned" over his condition, indicating he had a lung infection. But sitting alongside Ecuador's foreign minister at a news conference at the embassy in August 2014, Mr Assange dismissed newspaper reports that he would be leaving the embassy to seek medical treatment. Investigation stalls In 2014, the Swedish investigation stalled as prosecutors insisted on questioning Mr Assange in Sweden.

In March they offered to travel to London to interview him. But they then had to drop the inquiry into the sexual assault allegations on 13 August as under Swedish law, charges cannot be laid without interviewing the suspect and they had run out of time to do so. After the decision, Mr Assange said he was "extremely disappointed" and that the Swedish prosecutor had avoided hearing his side of the story. The accusations were "time-barred" under Swedish law. Investigators had until 13 August to question Mr Assange about one accusation of sexual molestation and one of unlawful coercion, while the time limit on a further allegation of sexual molestation was to run out later the same month. Image copyright AP Image caption Mr Assange has complained to the UN that he is being unlawfully detained The allegation of rape is not due to expire until 2020, and prosecutors say their investigation will continue. Mr Assange later complained to the UN that he was being unlawfully detained as he could not leave the embassy without being arrested. In February 2016, the UN panel ruled in his favour, stating that he had been "arbitrarily detained", and should be allowed to walk free and compensated for his "deprivation of liberty".

Mr Assange hailed it a "significant victory" and called the decision "binding". The ruling is not legally binding on the UK, however, and the UK Foreign Office responded by saying it "changes nothing". The Metropolitan Police have said he will still be arrested if he leaves the embassy where, for now, he remains. Julian Assange Fast Facts - CNN.com Julian Assange Fast Facts CNN Library Updated 3:41 PM ET, Thu January 5, 2017 Chat with us in Facebook Messenger. Find out what's happening in the world as it unfolds. Photos: WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange Julian Assange, founder of the website WikiLeaks, has been a key figure in major leaks of classified government documents, cables and videos since his site launched in 2006. Hide Caption 1 of 15 Photos: WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange Assange holds a copy of The Guardian newspaper in London on July 26, 2010, a day after WikiLeaks posted more than 90,000 classified documents related to the Afghanistan War. Hide Caption 2 of 15 Photos: WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange Assange attends a seminar at the Swedish Trade Union Confederation in Stockholm on August 14, 2010.

Six days later, Swedish prosecutors issued a warrant for his arrest based on allegations of sexual assault from two women. Hide Caption 3 of 15 Photos: WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange Assange displays a page from WikiLeaks on October 23, 2010, in London. WikiLeaks released approximately 400,000 classified military documents from the Iraq War the day before. Hide Caption 4 of 15 Photos: WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange Assange and his bodyguards are seen after a news conference in Geneva, Switzerland, on November 4, 2010. It was the month WikiLeaks began releasing diplomatic cables from U.S. embassies. Hide Caption 5 of 15 Photos: WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange Assange sits behind the tinted window of a police vehicle at Westminster Magistrates court in London on December 14, 2010. Assange had turned himself in to London authorities on December 7 and was released on bail and put on house arrest on December 16.

Hide Caption 6 of 15 Photos: WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange Assange supporters stand outside Belmarsh Magistrates Court in London on February 24, 2011, as a judge ruled in favor of Assange's extradition to Sweden. Hide Caption 7 of 15 Photos: WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange Copies of the "unauthorized autobiography" of Assange sit on display in a bookstore in Edinburgh, Scotland, on September 22, 2011. Earlier that month, WikiLeaks released more than 250,000 U.S. diplomatic cables. Hide Caption 8 of 15 Photos: WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange Assange speaks to demonstrators from the steps of St. Paul's Cathedral in London on October 15, 2011. Hide Caption 9 of 15 Photos: WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange Two police officers stand guard outside the Ecuadorian Embassy in London on June 20, 2012, after Assange took refuge there to avoid arrest and extradition by British police. Ecuador granted him asylum in August 2012.

Hide Caption 10 of 15 Photos: WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange Assange speaks from a window of the Ecuadorian Embassy in London on December 20, 2012. Facing arrest by British officials, Assange has not set foot outside the embassy since June 2012. Hide Caption 11 of 15 Photos: WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange Assange appears with Ecuadorian Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino on the balcony of the embassy on June 16, 2013. Hide Caption 12 of 15 Photos: WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange Benedict Cumberbatch stars as Assange in the film "The Fifth Estate." Assange refused to meet the actor, stating: "I believe you are well-intentioned, but surely you can see why it is a bad idea for me to meet with you. By meeting with you, I would validate this wretched film, and endorse the talented, but debauched, performance that the script will force you to give." Hide Caption 13 of 15 Photos: WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange Assange speaks during a panel discussion at the South By Southwest Festival in Austin, Texas, in March 2014.

Hide Caption Photos: WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange Assange attends a news conference inside the Ecuadorian Embassy in London in August. Hide Caption 15 of 15 Here's a look at the life of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. He is wanted by Swedish authorities over allegations of sexual assault, and was granted asylum at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London on July 19, 2012. Personal: Birth date: July 3, 1971 Birth place: Townsville, Queensland, Australia Father: John Shipton Read More Other Facts: If apprehended by the Swedes, he has said he could eventually end up in the United States , where he could be charged and tried over the leak of confidential US documents to the public via the website WikiLeaks. When he was a year old, his mother married Brett Assange, who adopted Julian. Guest-starred as himself on the 500th episode of The Simpsons, in 2012. He recorded his lines over the phone from the Ecuadorian embassy in London, where he has been granted asylum. Timeline: 2006 - WikiLeaks is founded by Julian Assange.

2007 - WikiLeaks posts the procedures manual for Camp Delta, the US detention center in Guantanamo Bay. September 2008 - WikiLeaks posts emails from vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin 's Yahoo account. April 5, 2010 - WikiLeaks posts a video showing a US military helicopter firing on and killing two journalists and a number of Iraqi civilians in 2007. The military claims that the helicopter crew believed the targets were armed insurgents, not civilians. July 25, 2010 - WikiLeaks posts more than 90,000 classified documents related to the Afghanistan war . August 20, 2010 - Swedish prosecutors issue an arrest warrant for Assange based on allegations of sexual assault from two female WikiLeaks volunteers. August 21, 2010 - The Swedish prosecutor's office announces it is rescinding the arrest warrant. August 31, 2010 - Assange is questioned by Stockholm police and told of the charges against him. October 22, 2010 - WikiLeaks publishes classified military documents from the Iraq war . November 20, 2010 - The Stockholm Criminal Court issues an arrest warrant for Assange.

November 28, 2010 - WikiLeaks begins publishing diplomatic cables from US embassies. The site says the documents will be released in stages "over the next few months." December 7, 2010 - Turns himself in to London authorities. Assange is remanded in custody. December 16, 2010 - Is released on bail and put on house arrest. February 24, 2011 - A judge rules in support of Assange's extradition to Sweden. Assange's lawyers file an appeal. April 24, 2011 - WikiLeaks begins releasing classified military documents providing details on the behavior and treatment of detainees being held at the US Navy's detention facility at Guantanamo Bay. September 2, 2011 - WikiLeaks releases its archive of more than a quarter million US diplomatic cables. November 2, 2011 - Appeals court judges in London rule in favor of Assange being extradited to Sweden. November 15, 2011 - The UK Judicial Office announces Assange has applied to take his appeal against extradition to Sweden to the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom.

May 30, 2012 - The British Supreme Court denies Assange's appeal against extradition to Sweden, but grants him two weeks to file an appeal. This is unusual, because rulings are supposed to be final. August 16, 2012 - Ecuador announces it has granted asylum to Assange. August 19, 2012 - Makes a public address from the balcony of the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, demanding that the United States drop its "witch hunt" against WikiLeaks. September 26, 2012 - Delivers a speech via satellite to a full conference room at the United Nations , asking the US government to end its actions against him and his website. The event was held by the Mission of Ecuador on UN grounds, but was not officially sponsored by the world body. November 2012 - Assange's book, "Cypherpunks: Freedom and the Future of the Internet," is released. May 11, 2015 - The Swedish Supreme Court denies Assange's latest appeal to dismiss an arrest warrant for allegations of sexual assault.

July 3, 2015 - France rejects Assange's request for "protection" after the controversial WikiLeaks founder publishes an open letter in national newspaper Le Monde. August 13, 2015 - Swedish prosecutors announce they are dropping allegations involving sexual molestation and coercion as statutes of limitations in the investigation run out this month. However, the allegation of suspicion of rape still stands, and he may be investigated on it until 2020, Swedish prosecutors have said. February 5, 2016 - A UN rights working group says its investigation found that Assange is being arbitrarily detained by the governments of Sweden and the United Kingdom. May 25, 2016 - A Swedish court upholds the arrest warrant for Assange , with a Swedish prosecutor saying there's still probable cause to prosecute him on a rape allegation and that "the risk of him evading justice is still large." July 22, 2016 - WikiLeaks releases nearly 20,000 emails from Democratic National Committee staffers. The leaked emails appear to show the committee favoring presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders during the US presidential primary.

On July 29, Assange tells CNN's Anderson Cooper that the email release was timed to coincide with the start of the Democratic National Convention. September 15, 2016 - WikiLeaks announces via Twitter that "If Obama grants Manning clemency, Assange will agree to US prison in exchange -- despite its clear unlawfulness," referring to Chelsea Manning, the imprisoned former Army intelligence analyst convicted of violating the Espionage Act. September 16, 2016 - A Swedish appeals court states again that the arrest warrant for Assange on allegations of rape still stands . This is the eighth time the European arrest warrant has been tested in a Swedish court. All eight judgments have gone against Assange. November 6, 2016 - Two days before the US presidential election, WikiLeaks releases a new trove of emails apparently hacked from the Democratic Party. November 14, 2016 - WikiLeaks tweets that Assange is giving a statement in the presence of a Swedish prosecutor regarding allegations he sexually assaulted two women in the country six years ago. What is Wikileaks?

- BBC News BBC News By Jonathan Fildes Technology reporter, BBC News 7 December 2010 Close share panel Image caption Wikileaks has established a reputation for publishing sensitive materials Whistle-blowing website Wikileaks has dominated the news, both because of its steady drip feed of secret documents, but also because of the dealings of its enigmatic front man Julian Assange. The recent release of thousands of sensitive diplomatic cables is just the latest in a long list of "leaks" published by the secretive site, which has established a reputation for publishing sensitive material from governments and other high-profile organisations. In October the site released almost 400,000 secret US military logs detailing its operations in Iraq. They followed hot on the heels of nearly 90,000 classified military records, which gave an insight into the military strategy in Afghanistan. And in April 2010, for example, Wikileaks posted a video on its website that shows a US Apache helicopter killing at least 12 people - including two Reuters journalists - during an attack in Baghdad in 2007. A US military analyst is currently awaiting trial, on charges of leaking the material along with the cables and military documents.

Legal wrangles However, the site's recent prominence is part of a longer and controversial history that started in December 2006, when it first hit the net. Since that time it has split opinion. Game of cat-and-mouse 28 Nov: First cables released 29 Nov: US brands cable leaks an "attack on the international community" and says criminal investigation ongoing 29 Nov: Former US vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin calls for Mr Assange to be "pursued with the same urgency we pursue al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders" 3 Dec: Wikileaks forced to change web address after coming under cyber attack 3 Dec: Sweden issues new European arrest warrant for Mr Assange over sex crime allegations but wording is wrong 6 Dec: Sweden issues new warrant and passes it to police in UK 7 Dec: Mr Assange is arrested in London after voluntarily walking into a police station For some it is lauded as the future of investigative journalism; it has been described as the world's first stateless news organisation. For others - particularly the governments and corporations whose secrets it exposes - it is a risk.

In October 2009, it posted a list of names and addresses of people it claimed belonged to the British National Party (BNP). The BNP said the list was a "malicious forgery". And during the 2008 US elections, it published screenshots of the e-mail inbox, pictures and address book of vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin. Other controversial documents hosted on the site include a copy of the Standard Operating Procedures for Camp Delta, a document that detailed restrictions placed on prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. Many of these were uploaded to the website, which allows anyone to submit documents anonymously. However, a team of reviewers - volunteers from the mainstream press, journalists and Wikileaks staff - decides what is published. "We use advanced cryptographic techniques and legal techniques to protect sources," Mr Assange told the BBC in February. The site says that it accepts "classified, censored or otherwise restricted material of political, diplomatic or ethical significance" but does not take "rumour, opinion or other kinds of first hand reporting or material that is already publicly available". "We specialise in allowing whistle-blowers and journalists who have been censored to get material out to the public," said Mr Assange.

It is operated by an organisation known as the Sunshine Press and claims to be "funded by human rights campaigners, investigative journalists, technologists and the general public". Since Wikileaks first appeared on the net, it has faced various legal challenges to take it offline. Prior to the most recent leaks, it said it had fought off more than 100 legal challenges successfully. In 2008, for example, the Swiss bank Julius Baer won a court ruling to block the site after Wikileaks posted "several hundred" documents about its offshore activities. It was eventually overturned. Money matters But more recently, the site has faced new challenges. The private life of Mr Assange, its editor-in-chief, has been laid bare and it has lost key staff and supporters. "[To] keep our sources safe, we have had to spread assets, encrypt everything, and move telecommunications and people around the world to activate protective laws in different national jurisdictions Julian Assange The site has also been targeted in a series of cyber attacks. Various firms - including web giant Amazon - have also terminated agreements to host the site and provide services to it. In addition, companies - including Mastercard, Visa and PayPal - have withdrawn the ability that allows people to donate to the site.

Its Swiss bank account has also been closed. But it is not the first time that the site has faced financial problems. In February 2010 it suspended operations as it could not afford its own running costs. Donations from individuals and organisations saved the site. Only time will tell, if it can do it again with many sources of funding now cut off. Despite all of these setbacks, Wikileaks has largely remained defiantly online. It has moved its operations between various companies and countries. It has also encouraged volunteers to set up "mirrors" of the site - hosted on different servers around the world. "[To] keep our sources safe, we have had to spread assets, encrypt everything, and move telecommunications and people around the world to activate protective laws in different national jurisdictions," Mr Assange said earlier this year. Throughout its history, the site has been supported and hosted by the Swedish ISP PeRiQuito (PRQ), which became famous for hosting file-sharing website The Pirate Bay. "If it is legal in Sweden, we will host it, and will keep it up regardless of any pressure to take it down," the ISP's site says. The ISP continues to host its most recent - and most controversial - documents.

The site also hosts documents in other jurisdictions, including France. Its experience of different laws around the world meant that it was drafted to help Icelandic MPs draw up plans for its Icelandic Modern Media Initiative (IMMI) earlier this year The plan calls on the country's government to adopt laws protecting journalists and their sources. Expansion plan Its involvement in the IMMI gave the site a new credibility. At the same time, it has grown and gained more notoriety. The site's rapid expansion - and the amount of material it has recently received - has meant that it has had to change its tactics. In the past, it was able to verify and publish documents itself. But for its most recent leaks it has adopted a new tactic - partnering with news organisations such as the Guardian, Der Spiegel and the New York Times - to help check and distribute the material. "We take care of the source and act as a neutral intermediary and then we also take care of the publication of the material whilst the journalist that has been communicated with takes care of the verification," Mr Assange said earlier this year. "It provides a natural… connection between a journalist and a source with us in the middle performing the function that we perform best."

Question: Who is the founder of the Wikileaks website?
Answer: Julian Assange